Did you ever want to be part of a subculture that seemingly disappeared before you even had the chance to join? Ever watched the nightclub scenes in the Blade movies and thought, “damn, in another life, maybe.” Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines inspires this feeling for me. I mean, this game’s got clubs galore. To really get the vibe of this game, I had to immerse myself. To that end, I’m currently in the House of Blues in Boston as I write this, eavesdropping on a couple next to me who, funnily enough, are also discussing vampires. The girl preferred the 1922 Nosferatu to the newer movie, if you were curious. But getting back to the point, I do feel like I missed out on not being in the zeitgeist when this game came out. I feel like I missed out on experiencing this wave of early Aughts PC classics. It’s always possible to go back and give games a go, but you always risk the niceties of current-day gaming tainting your experience. What do you mean there’s no fast travel from one end of the map to the other? Do you know how long it takes to walk from The Last Round to the Venture Tower? So, knowing that I can never undo the knowledge that today’s games have imparted on me, can I still enjoy Bloodlines? Let’s take a look and find out.
Ok, this one is gonna hurt. Bloodlines was created by Troika Games, a short-lived studio founded by a few key ex-Fallout creators. Starting development in 2001, the team toiled away until 2004 came around. Towards the end of the project, a whole lot of shit happened that sent development into free-fall. Bloodlines was over-budget, too ambitious for the timeframe given, and had game modes that were nowhere close to being done. On top of all that, outside issues with the Source engine the game ran on complicated matters and just dragged the process of development out that much further. Eventually, publisher Activision stepped in and gave an ultimatum release date. The date was November 16th, 2004, only a few months away at the time. The date was met at the expense of the game. Plainly speaking, the vanilla version of this game is a hot mess. Crashes, glitches, unfinished content- it’s not a great time. Which is why it’s common knowledge that if you play Bloodlines, you do so with the Unofficial Patch. Fans have been working on this patch since the game’s release and have over the years refined this title into something not only playable, but enjoyable. My playthrough was done with this patch in place, and I recommend everyone who is interested in this game to follow my lead. I appreciate the work of Wesp5 and everyone else who sought to fix this game, but know going forward that everything I say about this game is technically about an altered version.
Hello LA. You’re Up Way Past Your Bedtime, Aren’t You?
You begin the story by having sex, in case you weren’t aware that Bloodlines is fiction. It turns out that your partner was a blood-sucking creature of the night, which they prove by embracing you, turning you into a vampire, and really messing up your summer plans. Just then, other vampires burst through the door, capturing you and your sire. You awake to an ongoing trial called to decide if you should be allowed to live. It turns out that turning someone willy-nilly runs against the Masquerade, which is essentially a code that the ruling class of vampires known as the Camarilla impose. While your partner isn’t so lucky, you are spared by the pragmatic decisions of the leading man, Prince LaCroix. Although you are saved from the chopping block, that doesn’t come without a cost. You end up working under LaCroix, doing odd jobs that gradually increase in intensity and dragging you further and further into vampire politics and scheming. You meet plenty of folks along the way, some human, some otherwise, who all test your allegiances. It’s a compelling start to a story, and the way the opening dovetails into a sort-of criminal origin story is pretty compelling. You’re just a goon, running around, trying to make heads or tails out of all of this, but the more you see, the more you understand the sticky world around you. Allegiances are made as quickly as they’re broken, and everyone will take advantage of you if you give them the chance. In Bloodlines, you have to keep your head on a swivel and learn to read between the lines of every interaction.
The premise is pretty compelling, but it wouldn’t mean anything without some fun characters prodding the story along. And that, we have in abundance. Every character in this game was created with intention, even the side characters. Take the Anarchs, for example. These are a group of vampires that oppose the rigid and bourgeois rulings of the Camarilla, all united in their disdain for the authoritarians lording over them. But what’s a leftist organization without some interpersonal complications and infighting? Skelter thinks that Damsel is an angsty kid, looking to attach herself to any cause that sticks it to the man. Damsel herself is so desperate for the leading man of the Anarchs, that she would stop breathing just to give him more oxygen. And Smiling Jack is seemingly just there for bar trivia, not really caring much either way as long as no one gets in the way of his fun. Everyone just has a way of sticking in your brain. The only issue with these characters is how much screen time they’re allowed. Even though thought has gone into all of these characters, they do have a habit of disappearing on you after their part of the story is over. You end up getting invested in characters that you can never learn more about. You might want to keep hanging out with VV after doing her few quests, but she left her oven on, so see ya. As you complete the story, you end up erasing characters from its world through no fault of your own, which does suck. And despite how prominent allegiances and betrayals are in the narrative, there’s no meaningful way to align yourself with any of these characters until the last hour of gameplay. These issues come together to make the world feel a bit less organic. However, these aren’t deal-breakers for me. In the end, Bloodlines gives you a bunch of compelling characters, lets you wander around their world and listen to them talk. And despite whatever issues I have with the game, the talking is not one of them.
The Beast Is Always There
Bloodlines is a kind of pseudo-immersive sim. There’s a lot of customization on offer here, but there’s still a decent amount of streamlining with mission structures. You pick a character class that can either mildly or greatly alter the way you play. If you’re a dick-swinging Toreador, have fun walking around Hollywood, smooth-talking your way through most conflicts and picking up every goth babe at the club. But if you’re Nosferatu, you’re gonna be sticking to the sewers, sucking down rats and tapping away on computers whenever you get the chance. Clearly, you’re already accustomed to one of these options. You end up taking jobs, which lead to you just organically stumbling upon other jobs. There’s a great variety of missions in this game, some of them leaning more into exploration and combat, while others let you charm and sneak your way through. All of this sounds great on paper. However, I have to admit this awful truth about Bloodlines: the actual “playing” part of this game? Kinda ass.
One of the universal truths about the world is this: if there is a “must-play PC classic” game that the internet loves to death, that game will have awful gameplay. To play Bloodlines is to enter an agreement. The game will provide compelling characters, atmosphere, story beats, along with everything else that creates cult followings. And in return, you have to grit your teeth through actually interacting with any of that. Let’s start with combat. Melee is mindless. You’ll stand there, swinging haymakers at your enemy, with bigger numbers determining who wins. Despite what Jack tells you at the beginning of the game, you’re gonna want to keep plenty of guns and ammo handy because that’s your best bet at surviving this world. But even though guns are effective, I still wouldn’t say using them is fun. Most are unwieldy, and your enemies hardly react to being shot until they drop dead. Nothing feels worse than getting the drop on an enemy, loading them full of bullets, only for them to pull out a split-second 180° turn, and make you into a statistic. You do have powers and spells available to you, but each class only gets a handful each and the usefulness varies wildly. Slowing down time sounds cool, but when enemies essentially react instantaneously to even the slightest whiff of you, that just means you do a die in Matrix time instead of regular speed. Frankly, playing this game is kinda miserable at times. I don’t regret doing it, because everything around the gameplay is so strong. But there were definitely spots that made me rethink completing this game.
I Guess They Sparkle When They Die
Ok, so let me put my info out there real quick. Bloodlines is a pretty personalized game, and my experience is gonna be totally different from the next person over. I played as a Toreador, a class that specializes in charisma. This opened up a lot of what I like about this game: its dialogue. All the characters have their own quirks and personalities, so being able to get more lines of dialogue out of them was a treat. I was able to go through this game, enhancing what I thought were its best qualities to the fullest. But Toreador’s aren’t so great with the fighting parts of the game. I was only here for goth babes; I had no interest in fisticuffs. I primarily put my points towards guns and endurance. My thought was that I would be able to stay out of range of most enemies and cheese them. My plan was flawless. Enemy AI in Bloodlines is not what I would call advanced. So I was able to enjoy the parts of the game I enjoyed to the fullest, while also being able to skirt by the crappier parts without much of a speed bump. And in these moments, I fully bought into the hype of what this game was promised to be. This was a must-play PC classic. But all good plans have to end at some point. And I was about to reap the diseased crops that I had neglected.
The problems came within the last third or so of the game. After a game of pretty even and balanced scuffles here and there, the ass-end of Bloodlines really just throws gauntlets of combat at you, one after the other. Suddenly, my charismatic charmer of a vampire found that the sword was greater than the pen. No one wanted to talk their feelings through; they just wanted to stretch me out. I was getting folded, and my resources were constantly getting depleted. By the end of the game, I had sold everything I didn’t need and was still barely affording the bullets that I was expending. There was a lot of sitting around corners, waiting for my health to go back up, then taking pot shots. Trying to time the rate of fire didn’t work either; I guess these motherfuckers somehow have the only automatic crossbows in the game. This last branch of the game was quick-save hell. I had to put a checkpoint every minute or so just because I could get melted at any moment. Honestly, if I didn’t want to just cross this game off my bucket list, I would have just stopped after getting to Chinatown that first time. I can honestly recommend the first part of Bloodlines to practically anyone, provided you download the patch. But if you don’t have a good melee build for those last handful of hours, prepare for pain. This experience wasn’t enough to sour my memory of playing the game, but yeah, I don’t think I need to ever complete Bloodlines ever again.
No Masks At The Masquerade
Ok, let’s get back to some positives. Bloodlines is an artistically mesmerizing game. As far as graphics go, this game is fairly rudimentary. This was not the greatest-looking game of its day. If you look at its contemporaries, PC games had a “look,” and this followed the template. But what absolutely sells this game’s vision is the art direction. Gothic, spooky graphics abound here. Lots of hard angles and very controlled light sources. The look of this game is what makes cult followings. Taking place entirely at night, the environments you roam all radiate that intoxicating mix of scary, sexy, and decrepit that really suits a vampire-based property perfectly. Every seedy nightclub full of freaks and those looking to freak feels like home. Even mundane locations like offices and medical rooms have a grit to them that feels just slightly off-kilter. The world feels dangerous and fun, like being peer-pressured under the moonlight to do something you know you really shouldn’t. All in all, the world of Bloodlines is a masterclass, and it’s really the thing that will keep you going through some of the rougher moments actually playing this game. The character designs are also really fun. This game was of its time and unabashedly so. Even the NPCs walking around have a certain style to them that you don’t get from many other games. All you need to do is walk around one of the game’s nightclubs and you’ll see fashions that went out of style decades ago, but are probably a few years from coming back around at the time of this writing. It’s all quaint and fun and camp, and I think it’s perfect. Bloodlines understands that skinny jeans and button-up shirts with the top two buttons undone are a timeless look, and I immensely respect that.
If you are attuned to the late 90s through early 2000s, you’ll enjoy the music on tap here. If you know who Portishead is, then pull up a chair and stay a while. From goth-industrial to trip-hop, composer Rik Schaffer pulls it off. The sounds of Bloodlines perfectly capture the vibe of whatever’s happening on screen. In this game, you do a lot of walking around dark alleys and seedy streets. To the extent that most of your playtime is just going from one place to another. What could otherwise be an incredibly tedious part of the game is almost single-handedly elevated by the sound of shuffling drums, washed-out guitars, and haunting synths. One of the great appeals of Bloodlines is the atmosphere of the game. Thanks to the soundscape, this game is awash in it. If there’s gonna be a haunted abandoned hotel in this game, it’s gonna sound haunted. The characters also were given some great vocal direction and voice talent. The world is dingy and depraved, and the characters reflect that. Jeanette, the unofficial poster girl of the game, talks like she wants to lick your earlobe while she plunges a knife into your gut. No one character sounds out of place or underserved, with the voice talent bringing their A-game. This is a seriously stacked cast. Jim Ward, John DiMaggio, Grey DeLisle, and plenty of other recognizable voices help bring these characters to life. Overall, the soundscape of Bloodlines is a treat. During my time with the game, I never had a bad thing to say about anything the game was doing to my ears.
Oh, Nosferatu!
Oftentimes with cult games, the final product is greater than the sum of its parts. And it’s the same story here. Bloodlines is a borderline unfinished title, with janky gameplay that you need an unofficial patch to even get a chance to hate. There are many moments in the game where what you’re doing is objectively unfun. And yet, I still gotta hand it to Troika Games; this might be one of the greatest games released in its time. The world just swallows you whole and presents you with scenarios that you can’t help but be invested in. It gives you characters that, even though they might only be on-screen for a few minutes total, stick in your brain long after the game is shut off. This is not a product made without love. Did it have development time, resources, and playtesting? Not nearly enough. But that just doesn’t matter. When you’re able to look between the flaws and find your comfortable amount of suspension of disbelief, once you can finally just buy in and take Bloodlines as it is, there aren’t many other games that can scratch that same itch. And although I’ve mentioned that I won’t be completing this game again, I’m sure that I’ll be starting up more runs in the future, trying new characters, making different choices. Because even if the world of Bloodlines is sharp and jagged around the edges, it’s a cut that I’ll happily take.
If you wanna help sort out a nightclub owner’s daddy issues, you can pick this title up here for Steam and here for GOG. Just make sure you go out of your way to grab the Unofficial Patch as well. GOG makes it pretty easy, providing a download right on the store page, but either one is fine once it’s all updated.